Dead Girlfriends changes name to Default Genders following criticism

Canadian musician and Grimes affiliate, James Brooks, known previously for his solo project as Elite Gymnastics, dropped a new EP recently under his the freshly-adopted name of Dead Girlfriends. Following some obvious controversy over his name choice, he’s now decided to change the moniker to that of Default Genders.

Writing on his Tumblr, where the Dead Girlfriends name originated from, Brooks cites the reasons for his decision as listeners being potentially ”upset or offended or grossed out” by the title, as well as the fact that there’s another band of the same name already.

Brooks has recently been criticised for his use of ‘Dead Girlfriends’, particularly in this SPIN article. He originally pondered the singular ‘Default Gender’, shortly before changing it to the plural form.

The full blog post reads as below:

“this is a post where i tell you that i have officially changed the name from “dead girlfriends” to “default gender”

the name sort of had an effect i didn’t want, and it took me a little while to think of another phrase i could use that contained words that start with D and G so the artwork with claire’s drawing would still make sense. it doesn’t roll off the tongue as easily but thematically it makes more sense i guess

i’m in the process of changing all the URLs and stuff that it’s possible to change, changing the name in the actual artwork and website header and stuff will take me longer and i can’t do anything about the press that’s already out there with the old name, but it will probably come out in the wash eventually

i apologize to anyone who’s inconvenienced by this but especially to anyone who was upset or offended or grossed out by the old name, and to the other band that was using the name first

thanks,

james

edit: originally this post said i was changing it to “default gender” singular but i like it better plural, it’s better plural, right? yeah thought so”

Watch Brooks’ clip for ‘On Fraternity’ below: